Ignite (Firefighters of Montana Book 3)

by Nicole Helm

  Or if not fix it, rebuild it. She couldn’t make what she’d done go away, but she could rebuild from that mistake. She would.

  She tried to sleep, but mostly tossed and turned. No matter how exhausted she was from working all night, worry and guilt and the incessant need to fix kept her from getting anything more than a few patchy minutes stitched together.

  Every time she checked her phone for updates on the fire, Ace was likely in the midst of even now, she couldn’t find much information at all.

  Finally, she gave up and crawled out of bed. It was well past dinnertime, and she’d still yet to hear from Jess and Cole. She moved into the kitchen, then just stared at her surroundings.

  What was she supposed to do? Her life had been loneliness for so long, she’d gotten used to it, accepted it. What had Ace done to her that now she had no clue what to do with all this crushing aloneness?

  A knock sounded on her door and Lina scurried toward the sound, not sure who she wanted to see more. When Jess and Cole were on the other side, she was relieved, but it was a different kind of relief than if she’d been met with Ace’s blue gaze.

  Please be safe. I don’t care about anything else, just let him be safe.

  But she couldn’t do anything about that. She could do something about the people in front of her right here and now.

  Jess stepped inside, smiling tightly, clasping her hands together in front of her. Cole, the quiet, steady presence behind her.

  “You’re back.”

  Jess’s fake, tense smile didn’t change. “Yeah, I…I’m…upset, obviously. But, you’re my…sister.” She blinked furiously. “You’ve always been like a sister, and I know… I just think we should sit down and talk about it all. How it happened. And then we’ll go from there.”

  Lina nodded, emphatically, but she was afraid if she did any more than that, she’d cry all over again.

  So, they moved over to the couch. It didn’t escape Lina’s notice that though Cole didn’t speak, he was a constant presence for Jess. Holding her hand, or placing a hand on her shoulder or back. He was always there, sturdy and comforting.

  She could use some of that, but she was very aware of how little she deserved it. But maybe…maybe if she started giving in a way she really hadn’t—not for her whole life, even in these past two months—she’d find a way to be worthy of more.

  So, she told Jess everything. From the beginning. The hospital room, her perfect day, the selfish thoughts that allowed her to pretend she didn’t know Ace was Dean.

  *

  “Love does funny things to people,” Jess murmured eventually after Lina had told her entire story. Jess’s fingers intertwined with Cole’s and she blew out a breath. “How do we know when he’s okay?”

  “He usually texts me when he gets back from a jump, but… I don’t know if he will now.”

  Jess pressed her lips together and nodded. “Well, we’ll try to sleep and then… Tomorrow, I’m going to go find the little bastard.”

  “He—” Lina clamped her mouth shut to keep from defending him. Why did she want to defend him even now? He’d walked away from her ‘I love you’. She should hate him.

  But she couldn’t manage it, and she couldn’t…stop being afraid. Afraid he’d get hurt. Afraid he’d disappear fully. Afraid he’d never come to his senses and find some peace with Jess. Petrified he’d never realize or accept he loved her right back.

  But for now, all there was to do was…wait.

  *

  Nearly forty-eight hours later, one fire more contained than had been expected at the onset of the jump, Ace staggered back into base.

  He was exhausted—physically, mentally—and, after he took a shower, all he wanted to do was flop face-first into one of the cots specifically kept at base for this purpose.

  But he couldn’t. He had to push himself just that much farther. He’d had his epiphany at the absolute worst time, because both Jess and Lina had been left to think that was it. He’d run again, turned his back again.

  So, no, he didn’t have time to sleep. Or second guess. He barely had time to shower the first layer of grime and sweat off of him.

  No matter the nerves, the impulse to run, he’d jumped into the fire knowing he was a changed man. He’d come out of digging trenches and cutting down trees and fighting back the bitch of a fire even more certain this was his chance to change the course of his life.

  Not when he’d run away from Jess. Not when he’d met Lina, but in the moment when he’d decided to be more, to be stronger, to believe he could be different than the stain he’d always been told he was.

  Finally, and he knew it was wrapped up in watching Lina happily and easily build a life she’d decided she wanted, he’d realized no one got to determine who or what he was.

  Except him.

  So, he got dressed, even knowing he still looked and smelled like hell. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Not right now. He was just trying to start the process of making amends.

  It wasn’t going to be a quick or easy process, which meant every second he wasted with sleep or making himself look presentable was just that—a waste.

  So, he walked out of base and over to his truck, and prayed sheer nerves and grit would keep him awake.

  He’d just, with the help of his crew, kicked a wildfire’s ass. He could handle the woman he’d hidden from for ten years. He could face Lina, love, life. Because the only thing stopping him was him.

  He kept telling himself that, over and over in a kind of delirious, sleep-deprived, physically exhausted state. In the end, maybe that was what saved him. He didn’t have the energy to talk himself out of this course of action, he didn’t have the mental power to go through all the ways he didn’t deserve what he was walking in to ask for.

  But no one got what they deserved—good or bad—they only ever got what they got, found what they found, and loved what they loved.

  He was done being afraid of love. He’d spent so much of his life without it, why didn’t he deserve that chance? To have. To give.

  When he parked at Lina’s apartment he didn’t let himself linger too much on barely remembering how he’d gotten here. One foot in front of the other, and then he could collapse. He walked across the parking lot, up the stairs, down the hall.

  He stared at the door. Would Jess still be there? Hell, would Lina even answer? He closed his eyes, but that made the exhaustion hit even harder, so he forced himself to knock.

  But it wasn’t Lina who opened the door. Of course it wasn’t, that would be too easy. Instead, he came face-to-face with the woman he’d been hiding from for years. So many years he’d run away from the memory of warm blue eyes and a deep and endless love he hadn’t known how to accept.

  She didn’t move once she’d opened the door. She was completely frozen, but her eyes filled and as her hand fell off the knob it shook.

  “Hi, Jess,” he managed, his voice little more than a croak from smoke inhalation and lack of sleep.

  “You’re…” She reached out and touched his cheek. His sister whom he’d disappointed in every possible way. Standing there touching his cheek like he was something special, tears glittering in her eyes. “You’re filthy,” she said on some awed whisper.

  “I’m…” He swallowed against the swell of emotion, against the instinct to run, but…Lina hadn’t run. She’d fought. She always seemed to stand so tall and certain. “Here.”

  She made a choked sound, the tears slipping onto her cheeks, rolling down one after another. The hand on his cheek became an arm around his neck, and then another. Then she was holding onto him, tight enough it shortened his breath, while she quietly cried into his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” he managed through a tight throat that had nothing to do with smoke or exhaustion.

  Her grip eased, but she didn’t let him go completely. Her hands gripped his arms instead, looking up at him plaintively. For so much of his life, he’d looked up at her. He’d hit that teenage growth spurt right
before he left and, even then, looking down at her had felt…wrong. Strange.

  She was the brave one. The strong one.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, because he’d never be able to say it enough. Even if their lives had each turned out well, he’d never be able to make up all the ways they hadn’t been able to do that together.

  “Two is a start,” she said in a shaky voice, her tears still falling. “You have a lot more to give. Which means you have to stick around, you know.”

  “I am. I’m done running.” He swallowed, even though he’d made the decision back in the airplane, it seemed bigger here. Scarier. With Jess in front of him and Lina behind her. It seemed to close in on him. Escape and run had been him for so long, how did he promise to give that up? How…

  But his eyes glanced up and he saw Lina standing there, and he knew… Hell, she might hate him for walking away from her ‘I love you’, and she’d have a right, but he knew he’d finally learned how to be strong from her.

  He turned his gaze back to his sister. “I thought it would be better for you without me.”

  Jess shook her head, tears still falling at a steady clip, down her cheeks and neck. “You idiot,” she said, so many emotions wrapped up in that word—anger and hurt and…yet, underneath it all, he still saw the love she’d given him before.

  Because Jess had always loved him when he’d least deserved it.

  “I was.” He looked beyond Jess again, to where Lina stood next to whom Ace could only assume was her brother. The man had a hand on her back, but Lina didn’t lean into it. No, she stood tall, tears streaming down her cheeks and her fingers pressed to her mouth. “Until someone showed me I didn’t have to be.”

  Jess finally pulled back, looking up at him, and then behind her where Lina stood. Something in Jess’s expression changed, her mouth softened, not a smile…but closer to that than a frown.

  “She’s good at that,” Jess said.

  “We have…so much to talk about, but can you give me just five minutes?”

  Jess’s eyebrows drew together, but then she seemed to note the way he was still looking at Lina, and she gave a nod.

  He stepped forward, crossing the yards between them, and he wanted to reach out. To hold onto her. He wanted to sink his mouth to hers and come up for air approximately never. But things didn’t work that way, and there was something he had to say—more important than all those things.

  “Lina.”

  She raised her chin, looking so… Somehow, with a tear-stained face, her nose red, her eyes still watering, she looked like a warrior. The strong, immovable thing he’d fallen in love with.

  “I love you,” he said, firmly, certainly, holding her watery, blue gaze for all three important words.

  She sniffed, though nothing in her expression changed. She brushed her cheek, getting rid of some of the moisture. “Well, I knew that.”

  He choked out a laugh. Oh, Lina. “And we have a lot to talk about, but I needed you to know that before another second passed. I’m sorry I walked away. I’m sorry… You learn to run and it becomes…this pattern. Never in my life had I learned to stay until I came here, and it was easy because nothing was prompting me to leave. You were the difference though, because…I would have kept going in that pattern. I would have kept letting fear drive me away time after time, if I hadn’t seen the way you believed in something and held onto it no matter what.”

  “I believe in you.”

  He touched her then, unable to stop himself from drawing her against him. She wasn’t the first one to believe in him. God knew, Jess had put a misguided trust and faith in him as a teenager, but Lina was the first to get through his self-destructive bullshit to the man underneath.

  Maybe he’d started building that before he’d met her, but she finished it off. She made it real. She made it stick. She made it all, and he was never, ever going to run from something hard again.

  Because of her.

  “God, you smell,” she squeaked, her head still buried in his chest as if she didn’t care at all.

  “You’re going to have to get used to that smell, you know.” Because this was it.

  When he pulled back, she was smiling. “I will,” she said, and it felt like a vow, an oath, and he knew he would do everything in his power to keep it.

  There was work to do, hurts to face, apologies to make over and over again.

  But he wasn’t running anymore. He was fighting. Just like he’d learned to jump into the biggest blazes and fight the most remote fires, he was slowly learning how to fight for the things in life that were worth it.

  Family. Love. Roots.

  And just like he’d succeeded at becoming something when everyone growing up—except Jess—had told him he’d amount to nothing, he’d succeed at building a life. With Lina, and Jess, and determination, he’d build himself that full life he’d never thought he’d deserve.

  It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be his childhood dream come to life. Someone to love, who would love him back. A family to trust, to lean on, to be leaned on by them.

  Dreams could come true. With love, with faith, and with the courage to believe in both those things.

  Epilogue

  On a snowy winter day, Lina found herself back in Marietta. She’d been nervous. Nervous to see her father, nervous to set foot back in the place she’d left in order to find herself. Nervous to bring Ace with her, back to this place they’d both escaped and found better versions of themselves.

  In the end, the nerves had been for nothing. As everyone was in a flutter over preparations for Jess and Cole’s wedding, followed by a big family Christmas, and Jess and Cole and Sierra happy to see her, there hadn’t been time to wither under her parents’ cool reception.

  Though the MS hadn’t affected him much yet, her father did seem softer. He was participating in wedding things. He had no harsh words or looks for her, though he ignored Ace pretty wholly, it didn’t…matter.

  She was happy with her life and her father’s approval, or lack thereof, was something she couldn’t bring herself to worry over anymore.

  So, when she stood in a little room in the church, dressed in a dark red bridesmaid dress, as Jess fluttered and fussed over her hair, until Sierra snapped at her to stop, all Lina felt was…contentment. Happiness. Joy.

  And hope, for Cole and Jess, for Jess and Ace and the relationship they were slowly rebuilding, and for herself.

  “Where’s Ace?” Jess asked, her hands never quite settling their nervous flutter.

  Even for Jess, the name Dean had never quite worked again. When Ace had built himself a new life, he’d done just what Lina had done—he hadn’t built someone completely different, he’d found his true self.

  “I’ll go find him,” Lina assured. Though Jess looked nervous that he might have bolted, though Lina understood Jess still hadn’t come to completely trust her brother, Lina knew better.

  Ace wouldn’t miss this.

  She left the little church back room, to find Ace carefully pacing the hall. He looked lethally handsome in his suit. His hair was cut short and he was completely clean-shaven. Her heart beat painfully that he was hers.

  Hers.

  “Jess is looking for you.”

  He glanced up, his blue eyes vibrant against the dark colors of his suit. He smiled, but she could see the uncertainty he was trying to hide.

  “You’re nervous.”

  He scowled at her. “I’m just…”

  “Nervous.”

  “Lina,” he growled. “I…” He shook his head. “I’m going to walk her down the aisle because she wants me to, but… I still don’t feel right about it.”

  Lina rolled her eyes, though her heart ached for him. But she’d found Ace responded to her hard-ass a lot better than he responded to her sympathy, and thank goodness for that.

  “Get to feeling right about it. You’re her family. She wants you to, and you should want to.”

  “I do want to but—”


  When she raised an eyebrow at him, he grunted.

  Then she crossed the distance between them and, careful of her hair and makeup that felt foreign and strange on her, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Be happy that you can.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, making sure to wipe away the little dot of lipstick left.

  His mouth curved into the sharp, lethal thing that still sent a shudder of inappropriate-for-church feelings through her. “I love you, Lina.”

  It didn’t matter they’d said it to each other probably every day for nearly six months, it still filled her to near brimming with happiness. “I love you, too,” she replied, leaning against him.

  “Would you marry me if I asked you to?” he murmured.

  She jerked back. “I…what?”

  “I’m not asking,” he said carefully.

  Her eyebrows drew together and she stared at him. The bastard was half-smiling. “Oh. I… What?”

  “I’m just saying…would you, if I asked.” Though he tried to keep his mouth a flat line, humor danced in his eyes. Humor and love.

  “You don’t get to do that! You have to ask and see, you can’t…pre-ask.”

  “So, that’s a yes,” he said, still trying to be serious.

  “No, it’s a—”

  “Yes,” he said, pressing a kiss to her mouth before she could argue further. He had to be ruining her lipstick, but it was a fleeting thought, because as much as he’d been teasing her, his question had also been genuine.

  And the genuine desire and love and rightness between them poured through the kiss.

  “Oh, come on!” It was Sierra’s voice cutting through the kiss. “Can’t you keep your hands off each other for five seconds? Lina, you’re going to be a mess.”

  Lina sighed, stepping away from Ace. Yes, they had a wedding to accomplish, but after that and the reception, she got to go home with this man. And plan a future.

  “You better get me a ring,” Lina murmured, feeling full and happy and…ready. Ready for the next step.

  “You can count on it,” he returned before Sierra stepped over and started fussing with Lina’s smudged lipstick.